The principal subjects of this course are representations of the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and Iraq War on film and television/video. With one or two exceptions, the films/DVDS/videos under discussion will be primarily documentary rather than fiction. These interrelated subjects comprise a cultural studies project in that we will be focusing on a contested site of struggle over popular historical memory and meaning. Specifically, we will examine the cultural grounds on which the meaning of each war has been constructed and contested and, in the case of the Vietnam War, how that meaning has changed over time and in whose interests. More generally, we will investigate how a particular body of cultural texts has served (and still serves) to construct a sense of Americans as conflicted (individuals, social groups, and a nation). For Vietnam in particular still can be seen as a key symbol of condensation for the social relations of power that polarize early 21th-century America.

Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.